Living Homes Styles & Options

ADOBE: Earth is formed into bricks, stacked for walls and plastered. A traditional building method used by many ancient cultures around the world, “still standing after all these years”. Adobe is not a featured home style, but it is note-worthy for earth-builders, since it is used in a variety of ways.

COB: An adobe-like mixture (sand, clay & straw mixed w/water) is built up as walls, without forms. Walls are monolithic, providing great strength in earthquakes.Sculpting in mud is an apt description for the use of cob, with curved walls, arches and niches . Also, still standing in England from the 1700’s, and like adobe is used by many other cultures. An inexpensive building method... Artists may apply.

CORDWOOD: An old and easy to build method; walls are constructed of short logs, called “log-ends”, and laid up into mortar, as one would stack firewood. Further thermal insulation is derived from a special mortar matrix.

EARTHBAG: Grain sacks are filled with dirt or scoria (volcanic rocks) and are stacked, like those used to hold back flooding rivers, into curved walls and surfaces, even into domed ceilings.

EARTHSHIP: The use of Recycled materials is the hallmark of Earthships. Tires rammed with earth, makes a bunker-like home as the highly insulative thermal mass stores heat, via passive solar design. Aluminum cans make gracefully curved interior walls. Colored glass & plastic bottles provide a faux stain-glass mosaic.

LIGHT CLAY: A n old German clay technique. Loose straw is added to a clay slip and then stuffed into temporary forms as infill for a wood frame structure. It is light, insulative, non load-bearing and highly soundproof.

PAPERCRETE: Recycled newspapers, phone books, cardboard, etc... are “chopped” into a thick slurry, mixed with concrete and used to plaster homes. A “breathable” home... most likely not suitable for roof water catchment.

PASSIVE SOLAR TIRE HOUSE: With variations on the Earthship, these passive solar, thermal mass tire houses exhibit beauty and warmth, with pleasing designs. Some tire walls date back to 1935. I've recently seen what looks like an old tire "retaining wall" near Salida.

RAMMED EARTH: A process where sand, clay, silt & gravel are mixed with 5% - 10% cement on the ground. A small amount of water is mixed with a roto-tiller. The semi-dry mixture is dumped into forms which vary 1 - 2 ft thick. This is rammed by hand, or a power tamper. When wall height is reached, the form is removed and set up adjacent to this wall to repeat the process. A continuous reinforced concrete bond beam ties them together.

STRAWBALE: Strawbales are stacked like blocks, sometimes curved, and “lashed” together, providing up to R40 insulative value and soundproof. It can be load bearing or infill for post & beam. Generally an adobe/cob type plaster is applied. Straw is farm “waste”, has no nutritional value and is usually burned in the fields. A relatively quick build & highly insulative method.

NATURAL FINISHES: Plasters - Clay comes in a variety of colours. They breathe and adhere well to straw bale, cob and rammed earth. They're also very easy to apply and work with. Color: Natural pigments are used for washes, fresco and stains. Pigment is mixed into the plaster or slip and then applied.